


Flowers In Neon

by adastreia_writes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cybernetics, Cyberpunk, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, LGBT, Lesbian Relationship, Science Fiction, Short Story, for lesbian visibility day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adastreia_writes/pseuds/adastreia_writes
Summary: In the relatively near future, a genius is left stunted when her best friend is diagnosed with Hanahaki Disease. As the petals claim her friend and she begins to die, she scrambles for any solution to save her because losing her sure as hell isn't an option.





	Flowers In Neon

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this very quickly for a challenge in a writer server I'm in and decided to share cause I actually liked it and it got finished. It's not much but I hope you enjoy it!

Everything about her was a lie. From the color of her eyes to the texture of her lips, to her very heart. She knew that. She knew it as she kissed her and as she lied in her lap talking about her day. But she couldn't help it. She fell for those lies every day. 

 

When her best friend had been diagnosed with Hanahaki disease, Carol hadn't known what to do. A genius in the modern world of cyborgs and A.I. and yet she was stunted, unable to do anything to stop the flowers taking root in Ursula's lungs. The first scientist to create fully functional cyborg eyes, and she was defeated by petals and stems. She later considered that to be her life's greatest failure. 

 

She was ashamed to admit that she hadn't been by Ursula's side as she had withered away. In retrospect, had she done so, she probably could have prevented her current situation. Instead, she had done her own share of wasting away, slaving over her files, flipping through the hologram simulations in her lab, running test after test to find a way to remove the flowers safely, with  _ no  _ consequences. All the while, Ursula's desperate words as she was taken on the ambulance had been echoing in her mind:  _ I don't want to forget, Carol. Death is better than forgetting her.  _

 

At first she had tried to find the ‘her’. She had visited Ursula at the hospital and begged her to tell her so she could help her. But Ursula, with her piercing grey eyes that were now tired and her pretty, short brown and forest green hair that had grown too long and  _ wrong,  _ had looked at her forlornly and had weakly shook her head. Her bed had been filled with white and red rose petals that she had coughed up. Carol couldn't stand to look at the red petals. They had looked too much like blood.

 

And still,  _ No,  _ Ursula had said.  _ You can't do anything about her. Let it be. Let  _ me  _ be.  _

 

Carol couldn't have that. She could not let her friend die, and of unrequited love no less. If she couldn't do anything about the ungrateful woman whom her friend was dying for, she would do what she knew best: use science to make the impossible possible. 

 

There had been many roadblocks. She had ran tests on different procedures to safely remove the flowers but that was to no avail. The surgeons could remove them safely already but the flowers were mystical, beyond scientific rules and Carol's comprehension and Ursula's memories would be  _ gone _ and Carol couldn't bare to do that to her. After two dozen failed simulations, she had given up on those procedures. 

 

The idea had come to her as she had been gazing at the city from her roof one night. The skyscraper she had been living in was one of the tallest buildings of New San Francisco. It overlooked most of the city that was alight during the night with holographic, colorful ads, neon signs and bright names of corporations strapped across towers. Trains and autocars had been whizzing through elevated bridges and the faint sound of the trains passing below her building had been the only thing that grounded her through the haze of her grief. She had remembered a time when the sound that helped her was the sea. It had been by the sea that she had gotten her first revolutionary idea in the field of cybernetics that made her career. And it was over trains that she figured out how to save Ursula. 

 

It had taken her two months. Two months, three more scientists and lots of resources to build a new body for Ursula, fully functional, fully mechanical, where her brain could be transferred to, her memories of this mystery woman intact. 

 

_ I really hope she's worth it, you absolute idiot,  _ Carol had whispered to a sleeping Ursula on a quiet night while clutching her now skeletal hand.

 

It had been very risky. Ursula's body had been deteriorating by the day, making the procedure more difficult. The procedure itself had never been attempted before. The only files Carol had managed to pull up on it were a bunch of very hypothetical research papers, some really old movies like  _ Robocop,  _ and a  _ lot _ of science fiction novels. But the tests came out successful and the simulations came out successful and she had to  _ try.  _ The only problem had been Ursula herself. 

 

Please,  _ Ursula, consider it. Whoever she is, she's not worth dying over. Please just let me help you.  _

 

_ Carol! Why won't you leave well enough alone?  _

 

A sharp inhale. Red petals that looked like blood had filled her vision again.

 

_ Because it's not  _ well enough.  _ I  _ can't  _ leave it alone. Not with you on the line.  _

 

“You know, I'm really glad you convinced me after all,” Ursula said as she hugged Carol from behind. Her body was smooth but not cold, her synthetic skin tissue coated with heat stabilizers underneath, making the skin feel real and fooling anyone that wasn't Carol. 

 

See, Ursula had eventually agreed, and soon after she had woken up, while she had been recovering and adjusting to her new body, she had finally admitted who she had been in love with.

 

_ It's you, you oblivious dork. You're the one I was in love with.  _

 

Carol had been… shocked. At first at the mere fact that Ursula loved  _ her  _ of all people, and then at the fact that,  _ fuck,  _ she loved her  _ back.  _

 

Carol smiled and twisted her body to hug Ursula back. She gave her a quick peck as well. The microsensors under her lips would transfer the feeling to her. Truly, Ursula's body was one of her best and proudest creations. And they both got to enjoy it every day. 

 

“I'm glad too,” Carol whispered and touched her forehead gently to Ursula's. “I'm just sorry I didn't realize sooner. You could still have your body if I had.” 

 

Ursula looked at her with a soft, fond smile, and it looked just like it did when she was still healthy, before her diagnosis. Her eyes were the same beautiful thunderstorm grey too. Carol almost couldn't tell the difference from before. Ursula kissed her forehead and didn't pull away until Carol relaxed in her arms with a sigh.

 

“I should have told you earlier. It's on both of us. But you saved me, sweetheart. I'm still here, I still love you and I remember exactly who you are.” 

 

Carol raised an eyebrow and smiled teasingly.

 

“Oh? And who am I?” 

 

Ursula chuckled and pushed a strand of her hair away from her eyes. “You,” she began and gave her a kiss, “are a stubborn little shit. But dammit you're  _ my  _ stubborn little shit.”

 

Carol couldn't help herself. With a huge grin on her face, she kissed those lips again, longer, more passionately, and she savored every moment and every butterfly the kiss made her feel. Because yes, everything about Ursula's new body was a lie. Synthetic material, bioware processors, transmitters, metal and plastic, no real organic matter, save for her brain. But  _ Ursula _ was still there in all her might, unchanged in essence and  _ alive.  _ And Carol could ask for nothing more.


End file.
